by Stuart Woods
“Please put on your earmuffs, gentlemen,” Major said, then as they did so, he wheeled, tucked the stock of the submachine shotgun under his arm, cocked it and, moving from left to right, emptied a twenty-four round clip into the corpses. The figures jerked violently, spraying blood and gore onto the floor, sides, and ceiling of the narrow range. When the clip was exhausted, Majorov ejected it from the weapon, replaced it, and repeated the firing, this time from right to left.
Helder tried to close his eyes, but couldn’t. The noise was incredible, even through the earmuffs; the bodies danced wildly, as if trying to elude the dense rain of shot. When the second clip was exhausted, three of the corpses were without heads; others were missing limbs; two had been cut in half. For a very long moment nobody moved. Then, as Majorov turned to face them again, the group sluggishly removed their earmuffs.
“Gentlemen,” Majorov said quietly, “once the opposition has seen these new weapons used, they will fear you as they have never feared anything else in their lives.”
10
HELDER was now working flat out at whatever he was being trained for. He was drilled daily in his legend by Mr. Jones, who was ingenious at tricking him into blowing cover; he trained with both the Ingram submachine gun and the submachine shotgun, as well as with the Walther PPK, which he now carried, unloaded, in a soft holster clipped inside his waistband in the small of his back, to get used to it; he spent two hours each day in the language lab, polishing his American midwest accent; he jogged and ran wind sprints twice a day; and he endured a punishing two hour session each day with a squat, muscular Ukrainian, who taught a brand of unarmed combat that kept him permanently bruised and sore. He spent the evenings with Trina; they dined in one of Malibu’s half-dozen Western restaurants and watched the news and movies on the cable television. She was, for all intents, living with him, though she kept no personal belongings in his room.
He was at the point of believing that his operational naval career was over and that he was being trained purely for spying missions when Majorov turned up one day at the language lab and took him away in the golf cart.
“How are things going?” Majorov asked, as they whirred along toward the waterfront.
“Very well indeed, sir,” Helder replied. “They’re keeping me busy.”
“Good, good.” Majorov pulled the bill of his American style baseball cap down a bit to exclude the sunlight. “Actually, you’ve had about all the training you’re going to have ashore. Mr. Jones tells me you’ve got the legend down pat, and your weapons and other training has gone very satisfactorily. Now, you’re going to sea again, in a manner of speaking.”
They passed without slowing through a gate manned by two men in sweatsuits and armed with Ingram Mark 10s and headed for the area covered by the water-filled roof that Helder had noticed on his first day at Malibu. The area was around a point of land from the marina, and Helder had never been able to catch sight of it, even when sailing the Finn dinghy. They descended below the level of the roof, and Majorov brought the cart to a halt. Helder followed him through a door set well back under an overhang. As they passed through it, he caught his breath. Rolling out ahead of him was about two hundred meters of submarine pens and workshops. There were three submarines in their berths, a Whiskey and two of the Romeo class, but Helder could see, as they walked briskly through the facility, two berths that would accommodate the gigantic Typhoon class, the largest subs in the Soviet fleet. There were also a dozen or so minisubmarines, mostly of Type Two and Three, the mass-produced workhorses of the Soviet minisub fleet, which were used for everything from seabed research to the carrying of troops. There were two Type Fours, as well, which were equipped with tracks for bottom crawling, and something odd, that looked like a truncated Type Four.
Helder was stunned. Even having been at Malibu as long as he had been, he had not had the slightest notion that the place was, in addition to a SPETSNAZ training center, a submarine base. He looked out across the water to where the tidal lake met the Baltic Sea. It was obvious that whatever left or arrived here did so submerged.
“I expect you see a lot that looks familiar,” Majorov said.
“Yes, sir,” Helder replied, “I’ve trained aboard everything here except—” he pointed at the shorter, track-equipped minisub “—whatever that is.”
“It’s just what it looks like,” Majorov said. “It’s a choppedoff Type Four.” They walked up to the vessel and stopped. “And,” Majorov said, “it’s yours.”
Helder stood and looked at the minisub. It was, essentially, a cylinder about two meters in diameter and six meters long, with a shaped nose and two large ports, which gave it the appearance of a huge caterpillar. Steel bottles of various sizes were attached to it on both sides, and there were two remotely operated grapplers situated at the front end.
“We took a Type Four, shortened it, and stripped it of everything not essential for its particular mission. The diesel is gone; so is the snorkel and the standard CO 2 scrubber. You’ve got a smaller scrubber and one small oxygen bottle, enough to keep two crew alive for the maximum operating period at cruising speed. You’re left with a hundred and ten nickel cadmium battery cells weighing twenty kilograms each, which will give you three knots for twenty-four hours or six knots for two hours. As you know, the drain on the batteries increases exponentially with speed. Use of the tracks uses as much juice as full speed, which means for every five minutes you use the tracks, you lose an hour’s running time. You must always keep that fact in mind; it’s going to be very important to you.”
“Yes, sir,” Helder replied. He liked the Type Four. One man operated it, like flying a plane underwater, instead of sitting there and giving orders to two other men on the rudder and hydroplanes. Still, there was a lot for a crew of four to do on a Type Four. “You say there’ll be a crew of two?”
Majorov nodded. “That’s one reason we’ve stripped it down so much, to make it as simple as possible.
“Who’s my man?” Helder asked. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to have any choice in the matter.
Majorov walked to the bows of the minisub and looked into one of the ports. “Here’s your man, now,” he grinned, slapping his palm on the hull of the vessel. The hatch on top of the minisub opened and a familiar face looked out.
At first, Helder couldn’t place him, and then as he climbed out of the vessel and down the ladder, it came to him. A lithe figure, dressed only in gym shorts and a tee shirt, jumped lightly to the ground, and in doing displayed the body and coordination of a world-class athlete.
“Captain Third Grade Helder, Captain Lieutenant Sokolov,” Majorov said, smiling.
“Sokolov,” Helder said, extending his hand.
“Helder,” Sokolov replied, grasping it.
The hand was hard, horny, and very strong. Helder could not stop himself from staring at the familiar short, pale hair, square jaw, and widely placed eyes, at the fine mustache above the thin, hard mouth. Helder’s man was Valerie Sokolov, who had won the women’s decathlon at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, after astonishing the world by passing a chromosome test.
“Sokolov will be your second-in-command, your engineering officer, your communications officer, and your political officer, all rolled into one,” Majorov grinned. “You will find her as competent in each of those areas as on the track.”
“I am sure I will,” Helder said, trying to smile at the woman.
“I hope so,” Sokolov said. She did not smile.
“Sokolov has been working on the modifications to the sub,” Majorov said, patting the machine proprietarily. “Now, let me show you what its purpose is,” he said, leading Helder and Sokolov around to its other side. “You know, of course, that grappling arms are not standard equipment on a Type Four, but they are very necessary for your mission.” They approached a stainless steel cylinder about half a meter in diameter and something over a meter high, resting near the sub. “This will be your payload,” Majorov said, “Or rather, someth
ing very like it. This particular example is filled with concrete, to approximate the weight of the real equipment, which is virtually complete, but undergoing final testing. It is a newly developed radio transmitter which, when placed on the seabed in the proper position and depth of water, will, on receipt of a sonar signal from a nearby submarine, allow its top twenty centimeters to disengage from the cylinder, rise to the surface and broadcast a navigational beacon to special equipment on submarines, surface vessels, and aircraft approaching the area.”
Helder furrowed his brow. “I was under the impression that the current technology in inertial guidance systems and radio navigation was sufficient to navigate to any spot within a matter of a few meters,” he said.
“That is true, of course,” Majorov smiled, “but this particular buoy, the only one of its kind, incidentally, is to be placed in an area of magnetic anomalies that play tricks on more conventional systems. It has also been developed specifically for use in a particular spot which has more than its share of hazards to navigation by other systems—water density and salinity, shallow depths, et cetera. You’ll have to trust me on that; I can tell you no more at this time.”
“Of course, Colonel,” Helder replied. “In any case, my job is, as I understand it, to deliver the system, not to question its purpose.”
“Precisely,” Majorov said. “You will be dropped from a mother sub within range of your objective; you will, after confirming your position by three means of navigation, place the buoy within fifty meters of the specified coordinates, then return to your mother sub. I am satisfied that you and Sokolov are the best possible team for the job, you with your superb spatial orientation and outstanding navigational skills; Sokolov with technical support.”
“Thank you, Colonel.”
“We are fortunate in having excellent conditions for training just outside our tidal lake, in the Baltic,” Majorov said. I cannot yet give you the date of your mission—indeed, you may only have a few hours’, even a few minutes’ notice—but I can tell you that you must be ready to perform this task, ready in every possible respect, three weeks from today.”
Helder nodded. “I can see no problem with that sort of schedule,” he said, glancing at Sokolov, “providing the equipment performs as intended.”
Sokolov turned her narrow eyes on Helder. “There will be no problem with any technical matter,” she said, in a cold, light baritone. “You may be certain of that.”
“Good,” Helder said. “In that case, Colonel, you may rely on us absolutely.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear from you,” Majorov smiled, clapping Helder on the shoulder. “Now, I want you to get started today, familiarizing Sokolov with the sub,” he said.
Helder looked at him in surprise. “Excuse me, Colonel, but I thought you said that Sokolov had helped develop the sub’s modifications.”
“Of course,” Majorov replied, laughing, “and she will familiarize you with the modifications and new equipment. But you are the experienced submariner; Sokolov has never actually been down in one.”
Helder was speechless. He was supposed to pilot this ship to within fifty meters of a spot on the seabed, deploy a never-before-used navigational buoy, and return to a mother sub with a crew who had never dived in a submarine, and with three weeks for training?
His surprise must have been evident, for Sokolov leapt into the breech. “I assure you, Helder, that I will perform to your expectations. In my career, I have trained for many difficult tasks, and I have not failed, yet.”
Helder turned to her. “I have trained men … ah, submariners for many difficult tasks, and I have never accepted failure from any of them,” he said. “You are quite right, Sokolov, you will not fail.”
Majorov smiled at them both, but not with his eyes. “Good,” he said, “I see we all understand each other.”
11
RULE arrived at the Agency on the morning of her thirty-fifth birthday to see, preceding her into the headquarters lobby, a familiar, bear-like figure. “Ed Rawls!” she called out and laughed at his quizzical expression as he turned.
“Hello, hello, hello!” Rawls rumbled, giving her a big hug and kiss. “How are you, Kate?” He had been in the Rome station when she was a glorified clerk.
“Never better, would be my best guess. And you? And Bette?”
He grinned. “Never better would describe us, too. Especially together.” He shot her a wink. “I have a lot to thank you for.”
Rule laughed at the memory of it. Ed Rawls had been banging the ambassador’s wife in Rome, not the sort of thing the Company smiled upon, and his biggest problem had been not his employer, but his wife, a formidable lady who knew her husband well. In a scene right out of a French farce, Kate had snatched Rawls out of a dark embassy corridor in the wee hours, hidden him in her closet, and poured a drink for the pursuing Bette, while Ed sweated out an hour among Kate’s dresses. The experience had, apparently, put the fear of God into Ed, or at least, the fear of Bette, which was enough.
“You sure do, sport,” she laughed. “You’d be sleeping with the fishes in the Tiber if Bette had got her hands on you that night.” She did not mention that he would be out of a career, as well, and it was a career fast becoming a legend in the Company. Ed Rawls, in his quiet, rumpled way, had, in recent years, brought off as many successful operations against the Soviets as any covert operator since the founding of the CIA. There were many in the Company who felt that the job of Deputy Director for Operations, now held by Simon Rule, should have gone to Rawls. “What brings you to Langley?”
“Business,” Rawls replied, and Rule knew enough not to inquire further. “Listen, I was really sorry to hear about you and Simon.”
“Then you were the only one who was,” she shot back, “including me and Simon. Just one of those monumentally stupid mistakes the flesh is heir to. I got a nice kid out of it, though. He makes up for the worst of it.”
“Well, I must say, being single seems to agree with you. You look sensational.”
“Thank you, kind sir, just what a girl needs to hear on her thirty-fifth birthday.”
“No kidding? Congratulations on making it that far in this game. I have to admit, I was afraid Simon was going to make a housewife out of you. I heard about it when you got the Soviet Office, and I cheered.”
“Thanks, Ed, I’m loving it. Most of the time, anyway. Sometimes I’d like to be out there with you guys doing something, instead of jockeying a desk.”
They passed through the lobby, and Rule waited with him for the elevator before continuing on to her ground-floor office. “Your kids must be in college by now.”
Rawls nodded. “Millie is. Eddie finished this year. He’s getting married in September.”
“Good God! You’re too young to be a grandfather, Ed!”
“Don’t you believe it sweetie; I turned fifty in January. That’s it, look shocked, makes me feel good.”
“So how’s middle age? A few more years and I’ll be there.”
The elevator doors opened, and Rawls got on and held the door for a moment. “Listen, kid, when I was thirty-five, I thought fifty was middle-aged. But now that I’m fifty,” he let go the door, “I know that thirty-five is really middle-aged.” The door closed on his grinning face.
Rule stood and thought about that for a minute, then continued to her office, shaking her head. Martin, from Imagery Analysis, was waiting for her, dozing in her most comfortable chair. Rule got a cup of coffee for both of them from the office machine before waking him up.
“Sorry about that,” he said, blinking. “I had an all-nighter going last night, and this came in about half an hour ago. I gave it a once over and thought I’d show it to you before I go home and get some sleep.” He held up a brown envelope.
Rule cleared her desk and brought out her loup. Martin laid out the satshot. “There’s more angle,” he said, pointing. “But the Mercedes is now in profile, so there’s no look at the plate. Some nice other detail, though. Have
a look at that.”
Rule moved the loup to where Martin indicated. She went over the area quietly for a moment. “A golf cart?”
“That’s what I make it, but the nearest golf course is in Finland, and anyway, have you ever heard of a golf cart on Soviet territory?”
“Nope,” Rule said thoughtfully, “I haven’t.”
“See anything else interesting there?” Martin teased.
Rule looked again. “Two men, one wearing what seems like a golf or baseball cap.”
“Yeah, but that’s not what I mean. Look at the guy standing by the gate.”
Rule looked. The golf cart was headed for a small gate which seemed to segregate one area of the complex from the rest. There was a uniformed guard with a weapon slung over his shoulder. Beyond that was nothing but the water’s edge. “Where is the cart going?” Rule asked. “It doesn’t make any sense. A guarded gate with nothing but a shale beach on the other side.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Martin said impatiently. “Look at the weapon the guard has slung. You make it?”
Rule moved the loup to the guard, who was saluting whoever was in the golf cart. His weapon could be seen resting across his back. “It’s a little fuzzy, but … Jesus, Martin, it looks like an Ingram submachine gun.”
“Could be an Uzi,” Martin said, “but I’ve never seen that sort of suppressor on an Uzi. Looks like a Mac 10 to me. One more thing, then I’m getting out of here.” He pointed to the water, a couple of hundred yards from the gate, an inch or so from the edge of the photograph. “Have a look at that.”
Rule moved the loup to the spot and stared hard, trying to make some sense of what she saw. There was something on the water, something very small. It seemed to be skimming the surface, creating a wake. “My father is a fisherman,” Rule said. “That looks a little like one of his whatchamacallits … a plug. He used to have one that moved along the surface of the water. This looks like that, only bigger. I remember he never caught anything with it.”
